


Shirts Are Mandatory In Shared Spaces

by chopwood



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Modern Era, New York City, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Shopping, Steve Rogers & Natasha Romanov Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 07:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8614963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chopwood/pseuds/chopwood
Summary: Based off this post: http://h3rmitsunited.tumblr.com/post/153466882884/offtide-i-think-about-big-steve-in-little-stevesSteve takes a break from New York in a vintage clothes store and finds some new clothes.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short drabble to take a break from grad school and stress and my other fic.

New York.

The people move so fast. It’s loud and overwhelming, the smells and sounds. He sees eyes glance at him, trying to be subtle, but failing. He knows they know. He can see them whispering. The hissed, “do you see him”, and “oh my gosh, it’s him.” Pretty soon, the whispers will grow, multiply to the point where they are deafening, and they will suffocate him.

He ducks into a random shop and takes a deep breath.

The scent of dust and aging perfume burns into his nostrils, a welcome change from the smoggy air of the outside. The jingle of the door bell catches the attention of the clerk, a middle aged woman, with graying brunette hair and a kind smile, who is seated at the check-out table flipping through a magazine. Her eyes widen slightly when she sees who just walked into her shop, but she only says,

“Men’s clothes are at the back, don’t know if we have much that’ll fit those arms, though.” She huffs out a gentle laugh. The woman reminds him of his mother, and he feels his chest tighten at the memory. He doesn’t want to tell her that he only came in to escape the stares and the whispers and the noise of the outside, so he wanders to the back of the shop and runs his rough hands across the worn fabric.

 _Vintage clothes_. He laughs quietly to himself. The clothes he wore before everything happened are now old fashioned. Natasha told him recently that it was coming back into style; these people called hipsters would go to thrift shops and wear clothes like he wore so many years ago. He’d brushed it off with a laugh, but had spent way too long browsing the internet just looking at pictures of modern people with his clothes on, or clothes that looked very similar to them, at least.

Now here they were, it was like this shop had found his wardrobe… and his entire friends’ wardrobes… and the wardrobes of several other decades of people. The store was full of clothes of all different sizes and colors. Growing up, he would have never imagined seeing so many clothes in one place, unless he had started working in the factories again.

He pulled a few pieces off the racks, holding them against his wide chest, disappointed when one after another were too small to even try on. After some time, the clerk apparently took pity on him and started to look with him, not saying anything, but smiling softly, pulling out a shirt or two, holding it up to him, and then placing it aside. Pretty soon, they’d found a decent pile of clothes and she sent him to the back of the shop to try them on.

He marched back to the small curtained room, his arms full of clothes, and his stomach fluttering with confusing nerve. Why was he so nervous? He’d fought aliens and mutated super soldiers and nearly died, but suddenly trying on some old clothes was making him nervous. He shook his head, annoyed with himself, and pulled off his shirt.

It was still strange, even after all this time, to look into a mirror and see this hulking, muscly man staring back at him. He’d been so small and sick and frail, spent weeks in bed recovering from minor illnesses because his body just couldn’t fight them off, and now he was strong and tall and healthy. He also ripped a lot of his shirts because Natasha liked to replace them with a size or two too small, and then stick a post-it to his back and crack up when the fabric would just give up when he would reach back to get it. Hilarious. Of course, he’d taken to wandering around the tower without a shirt to avoid that issue, which had resulted in a passive-aggressive team memo from Tony about a mandatory dress code for shared spaces. Someone was feeling a little inadequate.

Out of the pile of clothes, he found four shirts and three pairs of trousers, and had ripped one pair when they got stuck halfway up his thigh. He added it to the pile to buy, not wanting to confess to the nice clerk that he ripped some of her clothes. He redressed and brought everything up to the check-out table, and the clerk gave him his total. He placed a few bills on the table and picked up his bag.

“Keep the change, and thank you for your help.”

Her eyes widened at his generous tip. She called out as he reached the door,

“You’re welcome, Steve.”

He smiled, pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt, and walked out of the shop.

 

He thought the team would laugh at his new clothes, or make some remarks about them, but they didn’t. He’d even started to find random bags of clothes in his closet, presumably from Nat, and they were his size, too, which he was extremely grateful for. He felt so at home in the clothes, like he was closer to who he was, rather than trying to separate from who he had been. The sadness that he had pressed down for so long was close, he wore it on those vintage sleeves now. All that loss, of time, of family and friends, of love, it was right there and he couldn’t, he wouldn’t ignore it anymore.

Steve Rogers would be okay.


End file.
